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In yesterday’s news headlines, one major candidate for leadership of the Conservative Party has claimed that Britain should want to leave the European Convention on Human Rights. This argument has derived from a history of struggles over the rights of prisoners and foreign national extremists. Yet it overlooks the long history of contested relations between the government and the people in this country.

Some analysts have pointed out that the recent referendum more closely addressed an expression of a feeling of lack of control or powerlessness rather than the issue of Parliamentary sovereignty. In this, the events of the past few days reflect an extremely long history of British contention between rulers and ruled which has encompassed much more than the British Islands.

My previous post on the Magna Carta highlights how that 800 year old document marks the shift away from religious to secular law, and specifically challenges the Government (in this case the Crown) to recognise the basic needs of ordinary people, to be able to sustain themselves despite the demands of the Crown to provide funds and soldiers for ongoing and fruitless war with France. Enshrined in this document was the concept that the monarch was not above the rule of law, and subsequently, further movements such as the Chartist movement made the same claims about the governing authority of Parliament, claiming that not only was the monarch not above the law, but neither were those of the House of Lords or House of Commons.

Fast forward several hundred years and persistent war in Europe had spread across the declining Empires of France, Russia and Britain, against those of Germany, Austria-Hungary and the Ottoman Empire. This Great War was only shortly followed by another, as financial penalties enforced on the aggressors were wholeheartedly rejected by a population driven to the far right through austerity.

The parallels with today’s situation in England, Brussels and Greece, in particular, are frightening. The European Convention of Human Rights (ECHR) was an outcome of these Imperial conflicts and an attempt to assert the worth of the individual as something that cannot be overruled by the State. No matter the argument for the ‘greater’ need or purpose of the nation, no individual should be denied life, liberty, due process before the law, freedom of thought, assembly and association. It is this agreement which prohibits police brutality, imprisonment without trial, forced labour and many other terrible instances of state domination of individuals or groups.

In British Law, the ECHR is incorporated into domestic use through the Human Rights Act. Yet in debates over terrorism and illegal migration, there have been numerous attempts to deny these rights to specific individuals. Regardless of the worthiness of these individuals, would you trust current politicians to maintain these rights for you and yours while denying them to someone else? The matter of freedom of expression and association is crucial here, as we enter a time of political upheval and passionate differences over what our future as a nation, in business and civic life, might look like.

This poem, which you may have encountered before, directly addresses these issues of individual rights and the power of the state. Scrutinise those who would strive for power carefully, for we may not like what they do with it.

Be forewarned, this post contains spoilers on the plot of various Marvel branded movies and TV shows released to date (notably Captain America: Civil War). I have not read the comics, so this commentary relies entirely on the cinematic universe portrayed by the movie franchise. I’m not a scholar of film, media or popular culture, but I have been intrigued by some of the themes cropping up in the Marvel franchise and the way in which these themes are generally dealt with. In particular, I find some of the elements of narratives around superheroes interesting, as they reflect upon what it means to be human (or not) and what constitutes moral behaviour (or at least what separates the ‘good’ guys from the ‘bad’), especially among leaders or celebrities.

There are many interesting elements which appear in the Marvel franchise around the role of government, the implications of covert organisations and ties between wealth and politics. There are also underlying questions about the ethics of methods and outcomes; is it okay for the good guys to work in the same way as the bad if they catch the bad guys in the end? In Avengers: Age of Ultron the narrative revolves around the implications of delegating responsibility for judgement of criminal action to automated systems – the very same debates which surround the use of drones in real warfare today. In Captain America: Civil War the narrative continues with these themes and explores the difficulties of collective governance and responsibility versus the pursuit of an individual moral code.

In these narratives there is a fundamental question over the extent of law and central authority to safeguard the collective public. In the landscape of these comic book narratives, which originated in and related to satirical drawings as well as war propaganda in their earliest forms, this draws strongly on the cultural inheritance of a time where capitalism and democracy as forms of social order agonised over the threats of communism and fascism. The contemporary Marvel narratives also seem to query the consequences of relying upon single individuals, often male heroic figures, to take action or make a decision in a position of imperfect knowledge or resources.

I first became interested in the role of these heroes in the Marvel franchise in their first contemporary cinematic movie Iron Man. This is a tale of a successful scion of industry who has profited from unethical and unscrupulous business practices and who lives an unscrupulous and immoral playboy lifestyle yet, after experiencing a life changing event and developing empathy for the suffering of others, changes his ways. Throughout the movie, Tony Stark (aka Iron Man) is questioned and criticised for his drastic actions as putting his company’s financial stability at risk.

According to Kantian views on ethics, those matters of action which constitute questions of right and wrong but fall outside of matters of compliance with the law, moral action should be decided only based upon maxims that are categorically imperative. This contrasts hypothetical imperatives to act (e.g. I wish to acquire riches, I ought to sell more products) where the action relies upon the pursuit of desires for what might be, with categorical imperatives for action (e.g. I know a product to be dangerous, I ought to stop manufacture of the product). The second action fulfils Kant’s notion of the Categorical Imperative, or ‘fair play’; a moral duty is only one that would be right for any and all persons in any circumstance. This is sometimes referred to as the test of universalisability. Kantian ethics is therefore a rule or duty-based system of ethics (compared to other systems of ethics such as consequentialism that focus on outcomes).

This seems rather counter-intuitive, especially to those who point out that all business relies upon competition, to produce the best product, to command the highest price, to attract the best talent. The marketplace rewards outcomes, not intentions. Yet Kant makes this very point, and highlights that our intuitions are often unethical, that it is education, discipline and civilisation that teach us when to act on more than intuition, to act instead upon reason.

Dignity and Human Rights

Kant’s categorical imperative is sometimes expressed in a formulation which is foundational in human rights literature and in the literature on dignity in business and management studies.

Act in such a way that you treat humanity, whether in your own person or in the person of another, always at the same time as an end and never simply as a means.

This highlights the importance of universality in human rights discussions, because even when individual human beings or communities of human beings have differing beliefs or practices regarding what constitutes moral behaviour, Kantian ethics determines that practices which cannot be right if they are universalised, are not moral. And for Kant, it is the ability of the will to identify perfect duties (which must be performed all the time) and imperfect duties (which must be performed in certain circumstances) as different from preferences, which is the reason human beings have a special dignity.

Kant’s notion of dignity has been challenged on this basis, as has his views of ethics, for not being able to contend with the complex vulnerabilities of human beings; their need to be supported by others (as children or invalids, for example). Yet it is Kant’s formulations that underpin the contemporary legal framework of human rights legislation.

Our Dramatis Personae under discussion

Steve Rogers/Captain America: His backstory from the films

Born 1918 to Sarah Rogers, a war widow and nurse who died in 1940. Rejected in 1942 for enrollment in military, but recruited for a secret military project and following administration of a mysterious compound developed extraordinary physique, strength and healing abilities. Undertaking numerous wartime missions against the Nazi-financed HYDRA, he led his own unit of POW survivors entitled the Howling Commandos which included his childhood friend James (Bucky) Barnes and blossoming love interest Peggy Carter. Bucky was believed lost in combat and Steve entered an involuntary hibernation following a plane crash in the Atlantic in an attempt to bury the otherworldly item conferring HYDRA’s technological advantage. When Captain America is recovered 67 years later he struggles to adjust to modern US life and culture, but remains under quasi-military supervision from SHIELD (a US intelligence agency). Working with other superheroes to prevent an alien invasion he meets a variety of people who act by a different ‘warrior’s code’ (such as Thor), have been more used to working for various government organisations as spies and black ops, or have not had any military training, such as Iron Man. In later films he also faces his childhood friend Bucky, who had been rescued by HYDRA and succesfully transformed into a mind-controlled super-soldier comparable to Captain America. Bucky recovers his memories with Steve’s help despite remaining opposed to him in combat and escapes.

Tony Stark/Iron Man: His backstory from the films

Born 1970 as only son to Howard Stark, who emphasises Captain America as a role model, having worked with him during WWII. Tony has a poor relationship with his father and is mostly raised by family retainers including their butler, Jarvis. Tony nonetheless performs well in education with a talent for invention, robotics and computing similar to Howard’s and becomes good friends with James Rhodes during studies at MIT. Howard and Maria Stark die in a car crash in 1991, leaving Tony to inherit the multinational Stark Industries, his father’s technology and weapon manufacturing company. Tony was not an attentive CEO, with most of the day-to-day operations being controlled by Obadiah Stane but he did establish contracts with the US military. He also develops an advanced Artificial Intelligence system to assist with household management he names JARVIS. Following kidnapping by a guerrilla fighting force who brand themselves as the Ten Rings, Tony designs and constructs the Iron Man armoured suit along with new power generation technology and stops all weapons production by Stark Industries. As Iron Man, he then proceeded to intervene in several conflicts featuring Ten Rings members when finding out about them on TV. Although approached by SHIELD to work more closely with (covert) US defence, Tony publicly declares his identity as Iron Man and does not pass the psychological tests to join the Avengers initiative (though he does some consulting for them). Despite disagreement with James Rhodes and armed conflict with Obadiah on offensive versus defensive technology, Tony continues to focus on production of defensive armour. Tony also develops a romantic relationship with his personal assistant, Pepper Potts, and eventually makes her CEO of Stark Industries. As his celebrity status draws critical global attention (including from disenfranchised Ivan Vanko) Tony struggles to cope with the strain. In later events, he is drafted into the Avengers’ defence of New York against alien invaders and embarks on a suicide mission which he narrowly survives. He later suffers from anxiety attacks and implied PTSD.

…or, why this blog isn’t more regularly updated

Followers of this blog may have been wondering for some time where it’s author has got herself to. In general this is a consequence of writing for other platforms, including academic journals and books, and blogging internally for my students. In order to be more equitable, I have decided to begin simultaneously posting material from my student focussed blog here, for general readers. If you would prefer to see this content on the original site, however, it can be found at http://man30047.blogspot.com

So what is this other blog about?

The MAN 30047 blog is a companion for students studying the module “Contemporary Issues in Management” at Keele University. This module seeks to strengthen student knowledge of management and organisations by emphasising a critical approach to contemporary events. In order to direct everyone’s attention to what happens outside, as well as inside the classroom, the blog serves to encourage students’ active participation with reflections on guest lecture content, links to other source materials and questions for personal reflection. Students have to draw on and reflect upon their experiences of organisations including work and education and share them with the rest of the class. As such, these posts may also be of interest to the general reader.

The taught module relies upon the key text Contemporary Issues in Management, edited by Hamilton, Mitchell and Mangan, published by Edward Elgar. It can be purchased directly from the publisher, or through other booksellers and is available in paperback, hardback and e-book.

Thanks to the ESRC Festival of Social Science, last week with the support of the New Vic Theatre, Newcastle-Under-Lyme I ran an event asking individuals to consider what they felt stood in the way of meaningful work. While there has been plenty of academic research into this topic, as well as related concerns about the quality of work in the form of ‘good’ or ‘bad’ jobs, the search for meaningful work as an academic topic and an everyday activity seems to fade into the background when many people count themselves lucky to be earning enough money to not need to rely on food banks just to get by.

The workshop was led by Sue Moffat, director of New Vic Borderlines and advocate of the use of theatrical techniques to get people to engage with each other and express their shared knowledge. As part of the workshop we played games to examine how we learn to trust people we work with, how a competitive urge developed, encouraging us to challenge some individuals and make alliances with others. We then talked about this as a group, exploring how important social camaraderie at work can be to make it a meaningful experience, or even how some types of paid work were only meaningful as enabling independence and freedom to do things in other aspects of life. We also listened to recordings about work, thinking about how the sounds and sensations of working could play a part in bringing meaning to a community as much as to individual people, and reflecting in particular on how the disappearance of those sounds and sensations could leave a feeling of loss.

Much of our later activity, building a narrative around images and objects in the theatre reiterated these themes about society, community and individual approaches to meaning. Using large metal frames we entangled teacups and wallets, stethoscopes and teddy bears. A story of the voyage towards meaningful work was written, considering the importance of the crew aboard the vessel, the storms and dangers of the deep seas, the provisions needed to survive the trip, and the search for dry land. While these metaphors may seem fanciful, they allowed everyone participating in the workshop to easily explore their shared experiences based on how they interpreted these objects and events. Throughout, we discovered that meaning was elusive, and could be challenged or built through our relationships with others. We explored how many of our everyday frustrations with work were those which challenged its goals or meanings, and how the money obtained through paid work was not enough to fulfil our desires for a meaningful life, and for meaningful work to occupy it.

So, this bank holiday weekend was spent in gruelling cold conditions attempting to represent a character from a gloriously sunny coastal port town on the edge of a great Mediterranean-esque plain of farms and vineyards. Needless to say, I grumbled both as my character and as myself. The return to the comforts of unfrozen pipes and hot food more or less on demand have been a reminder that however much I enjoy ‘playing at’ being in the dark ages, I’d rather live with first world comforts. It puts in perspective those at risk from fuel poverty and homelessness in today’s world.

So I suppose I should make this clear, this weekend was not ‘research’ and I do not have the permission of participants to report on it as such, so this post will be confined to my own experiences of a new LARP community and system. For those in the LARP community, it will be quite obvious which events I am referring to and there are already a number of detailed first-person accounts of this event online and easy to find.

So, the weekend was one of the coldest on record for this time of year, and some of my close friends at the event left early, unable to face the hardship of numb and painful extremities caused by freezing and below-freezing temperatures any longer. Having packed every single insulating rug and duvet in my possession and supplied with as much hot coffee as I could buy, I managed to last until the bitter end. My long-suffering partner diligently heated the ice to hot water each night so we could defrost our poor feet, and I think we were probably as well prepared as it was possible to be. Nonetheless, the cold did detract from my ability to keep to the game. The fact that the cold was escapable, that we could have given up and gone home, made it very hard to ignore.

Aside from the bodily challenges, showing up to a new game, with new people to interact with is always difficult. Explaining away unfamiliarity with the customs and practices of the countrymen (fellow players) camped alongside is a hurdle to be added to the many one might experience when trying a new game. In this instance, the game itself is new, so it wasn’t possible to rely on the community of existing knowledgeable players to cue you to what is and is not standard practice, no matter how much of the setting you might have read in advance.

Further, this was the first time I have purposefully played a character who avoids combat. Because of the cold and reports of poor ground in the combat area I also did not volunteer to engage in combat as a monster role, which I usually thoroughly enjoy. This left me in a strange position to discover those aspects of the game with which I could engage and contribute. Several of our group did join me in discovering various ways to keep warm that superficially engaged with the ethos of the group as a performance oriented culture. That is to say, we indulged in some silly dancing that mostly involved prancing about or jumping up and down to keep warm. But this glossed over the reality that we were too cold to take the game seriously.

Nonetheless, we did go out and do business. I negotiated on behalf of the group and got involved in the politics around business and trade. I went to meetings as a ‘priest’ and discussed the merits of business practices as moral or immoral (though this began to uncomfortably sound like university work). The politics around priests trying to influence business was something I really enjoyed actually, and I think if the cold had been less biting this part of the game could have really taken much more of my attention, as well as the role of ceremonies. The little phys-reps and metal coins seemingly more at home in a one-shot environment really made it feel like there was an urgent need to trade and swap things.

However, the cold and the site difficulties did make it feel like I was a visitor to someone else’s game, many organisers seemed preoccupied with other troubles and so left new people like myself to explore with little advice to guide them. The number of familiar faces, also strangers to this new game meant it was not wholly unwelcoming, but there was not the same feeling of community achievement in this ‘shared fantasy’, only a sense of a shared struggle. However, it has definitely thrown elements into the game which I never expected in a ‘fest’ scale event, so I think I will visit it again in the future.

A more coherent follow-up post may appear when I have recovered more of my wits from the elements.

It is not a new thing to recognise that the impact of games, or of leisure activity, goes beyond a superficial understanding of entertainment. Competitive sports have been used as training exercises, frameworks for peaceful interaction and even to distract a population from starvation and riot. We know that there is value to be found in the playing of games. It is interesting, then, considering how in UK culture RPGs are generally denigrated and ridiculed, to see how often such games are used for ‘serious’ reasons.
A few weeks ago, I met with the documentary makers of Treasure Trapped to do an interview about LARP and I was asked to comment on the broader use of LARP as a training tool. It will come as no surprise to the LARPers who read this blog that ‘doing it for the experience’ can encompass more than even serious gaming. Lizzie Stark has discussed the use of LARP as a military training exercise in Leaving Mundania, and equally the Nordic LARP scene is well known for it’s serious treatment of realistic scenarios for personal development.
Today, on twitter, I saw someone post a link to the following website, which presents the visitor with a ‘make-your-own-adventure’ style written RPG. Depression Quest is an attempt to raise awareness about depression through the empathy (and possibly pleasure or frustration) people playing the game will experience. The goals of the developers in this case are not necessarily that the player will have a ‘good time’, but that they will have an ‘experience’. One of the main distinguishing features between a written RPG scenario and a live-action event is that in the latter the experience is more dynamic and unpredictable. But more broadly, then, this got me to thinking about the differences between ‘roleplay’ as a game, and ‘simulation training’. LARP may well be taken seriously by few people outside of the LARP community in the UK, but even for those of us who play in LARP games, it is not ‘serious’. The experience is not focussed on a particular outcome with real-world ramifications. Rather, that experience has different meaning for different players based on their engagement with the game. Fundamentally, LARP games are collaborative rather than ‘directed’ in the way that a training exercise might be. So I played through the above game (Depression Quest), and although it aims at promoting empathy, it is a puzzle. The objective is to try to get your character through the scenario and on the road to recovery. Your progress is monitored by criteria listed at the bottom of every page. Objectives in LARP are often not clear, or are negotiable (after all, you could always give in and join the zombie hordes). Perhaps this is where the difference between ‘leisure’ and ‘training tool’ lies.

it’s been a while hasn’t it? I do apologise, I have missed you. Sadly the ‘real’ world of work is not as forgiving as the fantastical world of roleplay, where if you neglect your position some bright adventurer will often seize power in a brutal coup, leaving you to calmly roll up a new character on your next visit to the field.

I have been putting together costume for a new game I am attending at Easter, and investigating wedding garments for myself and spouse-to-be. I was struck by how many of my concerns were similar during these shopping trips and online forays; how re-usable would the garment be for different events? How comfortable will it be? What associated props do I also need to budget for? These questions apply just as much to a wedding suit or dress as they do to costume for a given them and setting at a LARP event. I began to think about how important wedding clothes were for what in LARP would be called ‘immersion’. Will they make the day significant and convey my identity and life decisions by representing me in my ‘best’ light? How important is it that they be customised rather than ready-to-wear? Do they appropriately represent ‘me’ as a person?

I began to wonder how many of these concerns affected the other shoppers I could see around me in the gleaming urban shopping centre. I suspect (from my admittedly quite snobbish position) that they have the same worries but are perhaps less aware of the extent to which these worries are informed by the social power of ‘brands’ or our consumer habits. However, these criteria have changed significantly over time, as those items which are of significance and notable ‘in society’ are transformed by change in taste and technology. Hand-made items are now the preserve of luxury goods, but variety of colour and textile appearance is now something attainable by most consumers.

At LARP events our props and costume are generally considered relative to the setting or genre we are trying to portray, and also due to the skill and uniqueness apparent in their making. Sometimes there is talk of adding to the ‘authenticity’ of the narrative or experience in the same way that re-enactors value the authenticity of historical reproductions. In our attempt to find commercially produced items (in the form of wedding stuff) that held the same value in portraying something about a ‘special day’ (and how I am beginning to hate that term), I reflected on how it must be hard to do the same with everyday shopping. Perhaps this lies behind the close attachment people develop to certain ‘brands’ as representing their identity.

One to think on….

Comments welcome!

….the role of props and background representations for conveying membership and performing ceremonial rituals…